


Dissimulate

by KrisseyCrystal (IceCreAMS)



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Gen, Mind Games, Post-Episode: s06e10 Prickly Pair, Steven Needs Help, Struggling Against the Caretaker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22934245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceCreAMS/pseuds/KrisseyCrystal
Summary: dissimulate: [transitive verb] to hide under a false appearance
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1648339
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Dissimulate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MoominQuartz (IceCreAMS)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceCreAMS/gifts).



The air conditioner was out, which was perhaps the only reason the window was let open.

Steven tried to focus on the diagram in front of him. His pencil wagged right and left and right and left, from palm to thumb and back again. His other fingers tapped against the table’s surface at odd intervals, curling and changing position every fourth beat. First finger and third. Or was it first, second, and third?

He was supposed to be marking genotypes and phenotypes. He couldn’t remember which was which.

No, he was pretty sure it was first, second, and third. The second finger had to stick out oddly on the second string. 

Second string?

Steven’s gaze drifted. He looked out the open window. He could feel the breeze stronger now, lifting at the v-neck of his tunic. There was a faint thread of music, something distantly played down at some unknown point in the world beyond. It sounded lovely. Nostalgic. 

That had to be a D chord. Then a D-minor? 

Steven’s fingers shifted against the table. First string, first fret. Third string, second fret. Second string, third fret. Yeah. Three fingers. Then, a D7.

The window slammed shut.

Steven blinked his gaze up to Martha’s face. She wasn’t particularly unkind in her gaze, but she wore a frown. She wiped her hands against the solid white of her skirt. “I was getting chilly. Sorry.”

Steven smiled at her. “That’s okay.”

He turned around to focus on the Punnett square, unsticking his thighs from the plastic chair. He tried to ignore the voice in his head that insisted she was lying. 

Martha was kind. 

She was helping.

* * *

Steven was pretty sure there was no better string of words in the world other than, “Your mother’s here.” What else could possibly top the instantaneous joy of knowing someone who cared about you wanted to see you? That there was someone out there, someone who was willing to wait just for you?

He burst into the visiting room with his hands outstretched. “Mom!”

His mother laughed. He could feel the bright vibrations of it through her chest when he pressed his ear close to her heart. The curly ends of her hair that fell over her shoulders tickled his cheeks. He giggled into her shirt.

“Hello, Steven,” she murmured in her lovely, lovely voice, which was perhaps the second best string of words in the world.

He finally released her and sat down in the metal-armed chair across from her. He didn’t want to let go of her hands, but when she pulled back to sit herself down in the loveseat, he knew better than to whine. He stuck his idle hands under his thighs. His fingertips tapped in imaginary frets against his yellow shorts.

“How’s lessons going?”

“Great!” Steven lied. “I’m learning about hereditary…things? Genotypes? Um. It’s all pretty cool. Like how I inherited your hair color!”

“Right.”

When his mother smiled, she did so gracefully. She was the prettiest woman in the world.

“How’s, um, work?”

“Good.” His mother shrugged. She leaned forward and propped her chin up on a slender palm. Her thick black braid dangled over her chest. “But I don’t want to spend all of our time talking about myself. I’d much rather hear about how my boy has been. What have you been up to these past couple days?”

“Oh boy,” Steven laughed. He ran a hand through his hair. “Um. Just my studies, I guess.”

“Have the treatments been working?”

It was always the third question she asked, only after his studies and other potential events.

“Yeah,” he lied again. Steven swallowed. Three fingers: fourth, third, and second string. Same fret. An A was always nice. Strong. Positive and optimistic, he liked to-- “I think.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I think I’m seeing less…stuff.” 

His mother nodded. She leaned back and adjusted her button-up shirt at the collar. After a moment, she rolled up her sleeves. “It’s hot in here, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah. The A/C’s out.” 

His mother paused. 

Steven pretended to ignore the way her eyes cautiously flickered to his. 

“It wasn’t me,” he said.

His mother smiled. The tension in her shoulders ebbed. She leaned back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. “Of course not. I wasn’t thinking it was.”

A lie. 

But that was okay. Everything was these days.

_ \--sick of everyone lying to me! _

Pain pricked behind his left eye. 

Steven tried not to wince. His hand jerked up in a movement he quickly aborted. He shoved his hand back under his leg.

“Steven?”

_ Rose is my mom! Out of anyone, don’t I deserve to know the-- _

“Steven, are you all right?”

Steven shook his head. Then, as quickly as he realized he was doing it, he nodded. The pain grew, a buzzing that needled in the center of his cornea. He pulled his hand back up and pressed over the burning eye. It spread like fire, curling up to his temple and down his cheek. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. “I’m fine.”

The concern on his mother’s face looked an awful lot like fear. “Are you seeing things again?”

“No.”

_ Yeah-ha-ha-ha! _

A voice echoed back at him in his own head, a mad loop, just like the ring of copy-pasted cut-outs of his face, laughing up at him from what was supposed to be a regular handheld mirror. 

_ You want to come out, don’t you? _

“Steven.”

“I’m  _ fine. _ ”

Mom was right. It was getting stuffy in the visitation room. With no air conditioner and no windows, no wonder the warmth gathered under his collar, right at his cheeks, and tingled at the tips of his fingers, neon-bright. Pink.

_ You don’t understand! This is how you’re supposed to act in the desert…  _

“Steven, look at me.”

“N-no. It’s okay. I’m fine.”

“Steven,  _ look at me _ . I can see if it’s happening again; we can stop it. But you need to listen to me.”

_ I don’t wanna hear about it! I don’t even wanna THINK about it!  _

“Steven!” His mother reached for the hand covering his eye. “Come on, now! Listen to your mother!”

_ Mom? Oh geez, those feelings are complicated.  _

She touched his skin. She pulled away his hand. 

A diamond eye glared back at her, burning bright.

_ I just want to-- _

“You’re  _ not her!”  _

The  **F** loor under h **I** s feet bent oddly. Black and white checkered floor tiles cracked and surged. His mother jerked back, skin wa **X** y and drawn. Her cha **I** r cla **T** tered to the floor.

The door to the visitation room burst open. Martha’s arms snaked around his middle and pulled him to her front. She was shouting something; Steven couldn’t make sense of the words. He stared at the face of his “mother,” whose expression had become shuttered. Coolly indifferent. Angry.

There was a prick at his neck. At first, sharp and painful. But then the heat in his system cooled. Slowed. It began to run sluggish where hot streams were coursing through. Steven breathed again and again. Was the air conditioner really the problem?

“Sorry for the trouble. We’ll make sure you’re compensated.” 

Martha spoke at the level of his ear, but she wasn’t talking to him. 

* * *

The box fan sitting in the corner of the room was a welcome addition with no working air conditioner. 

Steven got special permission to lay on the ground in front of it, feet up in the air as he tried to focus on the math problems spread out before him. His pencil wagged right and left and right and left, from palm to thumb and back again. His other fingers tapped on the floor at odd intervals, nearly in time with the rhythmic swing of his feet. 

He was supposed to be determining functions. He couldn’t remember how to do that.

When in three-fourth time, the strumming was different. It had to be. Change the time signature, change the measure of a heartbeat. Down-down-up-down. Down-down-up-down. One, two, and three. One, two, and three. 

The toe of Martha’s boot pushed at the back of his hand. 

Steven blinked his gaze up to Martha’s face. She wasn’t particularly unkind in her gaze, but she wore a frown. “Focus, Steven.”

Steven smiled at her. “Right.” 

He looked back down to the x- and y- axes under his nose. He tried to ignore the voice in his head that wondered if everything else in the world had an origin point, too, and if so, what his was when he had such a difficult time remembering it. At least he had Martha. Martha, who was kind.

She was helping.

**Author's Note:**

> To be clear: this is NOT what I think will happen in the last 10 episodes of SUF. But I WAS mightily inspired by uh, that image of Steven in a hospital gown, experiencing CYM flashbacks and glowing pink. So uh. Yah
> 
> Thanks to my darling husband, Isaiah (moominquartz), for the amazing prompt, "Struggling Against the Caretaker"! <3 It came from my "Bad Things Happen" Bingo Card, which you can [see here](https://krisseycrystal.tumblr.com/post/611178434033516544/rated-g-fandom-steven-universe-prompt) if you'd like to request more SU angst (or anything else I've written for before, too)!


End file.
